Stringed musical instruments are commonly amplified by attaching an electronic transducer to the face or top of the instrument so that the transducer lies under the strings or inside the body of such instrument. The electronic transducer picks up the vibrations of the strings and transfers the energy in the form of an analog electrical signal. The electrical signal is then commonly output to a musical instrument amplifier which contains speakers and amplifiers to increase the electronic signal. The amplifier, depending upon its own features, adds various tones and effects via a preamplifier.
With the proliferation of personal computers and computing devices, musicians of all levels are frequently employing software on their computers and computing devices for many purposes including multi-track recording, editing, mastering, adding effects, composing, remixing, film scoring, and creating notation for musical instrument education and publishing exploitation. Furthermore, with the vast resources available on the Internet, musicians are able to use online music forums and online software to enhance, share and publish their musical performances.
While traditional musical instruments are designed to be readily used in a recording or live venue or other concert setting, these instruments are ill-equipped for usage with personal computers. Furthermore, traditional stringed instruments which transmit analog signals have disadvantages because the electric signal is subject to various degrees of output, degradation and distortion.
In order to overcome these obstacles, there have been prior art electrical guitars designed with hexaphonic pickups which send Musical Instrument Digital Information (“MIDI”) signals to a computer. These musical instruments allow musicians to connect their instrument to a computer and for the computer to recognize the signals generated. However, MIDI signals are “command” signals, and the resulting sound rendered by the instrument is not always an accurate representation of the original sound generated by the musician's performance as translated to the strings of the musical instrument. In addition, tracking, or the simultaneous response from the musician's performance in triggering a sound through MIDI, often results in a time lag or a lack of accurate tracking.
Furthermore, many MIDI guitars require an external device which converts the electronic signal from the hexaphonic pickup into a MIDI signal. In these systems, the MDI signals generated by the external interface device are then sent from the external interface device to the computer. These systems have disadvantages because they require a relatively sophisticated external device which adds expense and which are frequently difficult to operate and cumbersome for the musician to use. Such external devices add more connections to the system of performance.
In order to send a more faithful representation of the sound from the musical instrument's strings to the personal computer, prior art devices have been developed wherein an interface device converts the analog electrical signal to a digital signal. For example, Patent Application No. 2003/0159570 (the “570 Application”) discloses a digital interface for analog musical instruments that can be detachably mounted on the instrument wherein proper placement is crucial for accurate performance or undetachably integrated in the musical instrument body. The interface apparatus involved in the 570 Application converts the analog signal generated by the musical instrument into a digital signal. The interface apparatus then has connections to be able to connect into a personal computer allowing for the transmission of such digital data directly to the personal computer.
While these prior art devices can enable a musical instrument player to send an accurate representation of the initial electrical signal from the instrument pickup device to a personal computer, the disadvantage of these prior art devices is that it is difficult for the computer to recognize the information sent from the musical instrument in order to be able to process such information effectively. The musician requires specific drivers to be installed to allow the computer to recognize the information that is being sent from the musical instrument. Furthermore, the majority of the most popular musical instrument software programs do not recognize these prior art instruments without first running specific programs or “patches” for the prior art instruments.
The installation of software can be time consuming and complicated. Driver software often does not record the signal properly. Moreover, many patches or programs to allow these musical instruments to be properly recognized by a personal computer or a specific software application have not been created. Therefore, a disadvantage to the prior art devices is that a musical instrument player is often limited in the availability of software programs to use in connection with a prior art device.
Another disadvantage of the prior art devices is that it is often expensive to purchase additional software allowing the computer to recognize the guitar signals. Additionally, the installation of these programs can be complicated. Further, even upon successful installation, the user can still experience compatibility problems which can lead to errors within the computer and the software applications.
In addition, Patent Application No. 2004/0144241 (the “241 Application”) relies almost entirely on an outboard device that will split the signal from the guitar. This outboard device, often called a “breakout box,” only makes more complex the number of wiring connections necessary, while adding cost and the possibility of signal quality loss and/or output volume loss.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a stringed musical instrument device that overcomes the above-mentioned drawbacks and disadvantages.